Emotional states during learning situations and students' self-regulation : process-oriented analysis of person-situation interactions in the vocational classroom

Introduction Theoretical and empirical aspects of interactions between person and situation have been discussed for decades in personality and social psychology in terms of the interactionist paradigm (e.g. Matthews et al. 2003), in educational psychology within the scope of aptitude-treatment interaction theory (e.g. Cronbach and Snow 1977; Yeh 2012), and in vocational education and training (VET) in terms of the process-oriented research approach, investigating antecedents and effects of successful teaching and learning Abstract Background: In reference to the interactionist paradigm, we analyse how students’ emotional states during class are affected by student’ self-regulation, by time-varying characteristics within learning situations, and by the interaction of self-regulation abilities and learning situations during class. Methods: We refer to existing empirical research on teaching and learning processes in vocational education and report findings from a process-oriented video study in naturalistic settings that was realised at a German vocational school. Altogether, 92 students were investigated during 1440 min of instruction by use of videography and continuous-state-sampling method (CSSM). The frequency of repeated measurement was 7 min, with 46–51 measures per student. Results: Via latent class analysis, we first identified two types of students who differ in their self-regulation abilities. Then, a multilevel analysis revealed that students’ self-regulation affects students’ emotional states. In addition, we found that emotional states tend to be affected by the interaction of self-regulation and learning situations within lessons (but that’s just a sample-related and non-significant effect). Conclusions: In view of a holistic understanding of teaching and learning processes in vocational education, a deeper knowledge surrounding the interdependencies between personality characteristics, emotional states, and learning situations seems to be essential for an evidence-based design for teaching and learning environments in vocational education and training.